The royal dramatic theatre
You have to excuse any poor activity from me lately. If it is´nt work it´s a bad internetconnection on my holiday making me basically just being able to make a post = (. Anyhow, here´s todays picture!
The royal dramatic theatre was founded in 1788 and the existing building at Nybroplan was finalized in 1906. Quite a big structure this building has over a 1000 plays in the six different scenes each year. I showed you the culturehouse a few weeks ago which has the "citytheatre". The royal dramatic one though has more classical plays by swedish and foreign writers.
Some great actors and directors have had their way through this place. Two of the most famous ones worldwide is Greta Garbo and Max von Sydow.
Nearly skyscraperfree
Skyscrapers are´nt that common in Stockholm. The city skyline is dominated by churches and not big tall buildings and that´s something I hope we wont see in the future, because tall does´nt mean beautiful, does it?
This five buildings are´nt any skyscrapers compared to a lot of other cities but compared to the rest of Stockholm they are. At the very end of the fifth building you can see the blue concerthall that I showed you in may at Hötorget. The buildings are often called "Hötorgsskraporna" because of their geographical location. To the left of the first building you have Sergels torg (square) and fountain.
They are ugly, but in a cool way ugly =)
THE BLOODBUS!!! =)
According to statistics Swedes are very prone to charity. Both from the wallet and physically. So no surprise that you can see buses like this now and again, as I am sure that you can see in most European cities;
The bloodbus is´nt a groovy horrorflick from the seventies but a bus where you can spontaniously give blood. This one travels around Stockholm, stopping at a new place each day and tries to get more people to give blood. If you don´t, then do! =)
Fancy a bath in the city?
Oooops! I took a three day break! Midsommar is a major tradition in Sweden and Finland but not in the rest of Europe. I took just a few pictures (I was more busy drinking beers and playing outdoor games, sorry, but it is my vacation = ) but I wont be able to show them right now.
I´m down in Kalmar in the southeast of Sweden meeting with my family and so I´ve cheated a bit, e-mailing some pics from Stockholm to myself.
This one was a picture taken in Hellasgården, one of many idyllic bathplaces in Stockholm. You can see my girlfriend Lisa feeling captivated by her own reflection. The older man standing on the bridge had just swum across the lake (which is quite big). In the background two large radiotowers that are visible from pretty much everywhere when you are in Nacka (the part of Stockholm where Hellasgården is).
Two day break
Stockholms dailyphoto takes a small break. In Sweden we have a big holiday called "midsommarafton" and it coincides with my short two week break. Will be on the road and basically I just had time to write this today. So no new photo until saturday = )
Have a nice weekend all!
A dreamlike undergroundstation.
I´ve showed some really nice undergroundstations in the past. Question is if this one is´nt one of the cooler ones. I had actually forgotten about this station, located in Vreten, a industrial area, until today when I was going to pick up a rental car as a temporary compensation for our stolen car from the insurance company.
Designed by the japanese Takashi Nahara the station is filled with cubes decorated with the sky. It makes a kind of surreal and dreamy feeling walking on the platform itself. None of the cubes are placed in any orderly fashion and it kind of looks like they´ve just come through the cavewalls.
A must to see if you have five minutes over!
How I feel you ask?
So Sweden managed to maintain our soon 40 year old mental grip over my second country England in the World cup with a 2-2 draw. Should´nt I have a picture of that, with people celebrating?
Or why not some nice pics from Stockholm?
No. And you know why? Because Edward Munchs the cry pretty well describes what I felt when I walked to the parking lot this morning.
We bought a car eight days ago. This morning there was an empty space where it should´ve stood. I´ve seen and experienced some tough things this past year but this still felt really really bad.
I went to work but headed straight back, to numb to even work. A lot of wine later, some footy on the tv and nice company has made me feel slightly better.
SHIT!
The museum of natural history
The Swedish museum of natural history is one really worth a visit! Based in the area called Frescati a few kilometres from Stockholms main centre this museum holds more than nine million different plants, fossiles, animals (not live ones =) from the whole world making it a "studio 54" for scientists!
The museum was founded in 1819 by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences but this particular building, a quite impressive one, was finalized in 1916. Inside you can also visit Northern Europes biggest Imax-theatre in the Cosmonova theatre. On a 760 squaremetre large domeshaped screen spectators can see different movies of popular science.
If you want to do that it costs 70 swedish crowns (roughly nine US-dollars) but if you want to get into the museum it´s for free! Great is´nt it? A lot of Stockholms museums give free admitance which is something I really applaud since it was implemented a year or two back.
Below: I managed to escape the T-Rex. But just barely = )
The royal library
The royal library in Stockholm lies just behind busy Stureplan in the nice and quiet Humlegårdspark. This building was finalized in 1878 after seven years of construction. Earlier the library was located in the royal castle.
The library more or less became our national one back in 1661 after a law was created saying that a copy of all printed items were to be sent to the royal office where they were placed in the library.
Even though it never really was a private library of the royal family it was´nt until the move to Humlegården that it really became a national library.
It holds some very old and truly magnificent books from as far back as the 15th century. Making it worth the visit if you should ever come to Stockholm.
A simple sign
As shown in april in this blog when I showed you our Raoul Wallenberg monument Swedes are generally extremly poor when it comes to saluting someone great.
Olof Palme, our murdered primeminister, is no different with this sign lying on the pavement showing the place where he got murdered back in 1986.
In the background you can see the stairs that the killer ran up and the entrance to the Brunkebergs tunnel which I´ve showed you the past week.
Personally I feel it is a crying shame that this is the only "monument" after Palme. Even if you did´nt share his political views he did quite a lot of work for the political scene in the world. But I guess that´s the bad thing with us swedes. We´re not supposed to get tributes. And if we do get it it´s in the form of a simple sign that dogs shit and people walk on.
First swim of the year!
On the 16th of june it was time for the first Swim in the lake =) Stockholms waters usually get pretty warm after a couple of weeks of sun, but mostly first in july. And with warm I mean 21 + celsius.
But that temperature was felt already now and even if I look a bit uncomfortable coming up it was actually quite nice after the first shock had settled in. Tobias, whose dive is documented below, felt quite the opposite stating that the water was clearly cold and that it was the bulk of my body that made me think it was warm = )
The lake we took a swim in was in Sköndal which despite the country feeling in the background is just a short drive from Stockholms inner city. Lakes like this are to be found basically everywhere and there is also loads of bathing places.
And after hiding in our apartments during the winter we Swedes do love swimming!
Sweden-Paraguay 1-0!
Yes, this is a crappy caption, I will not deny that fact, but it shows a bit of the tension that was in our living room this evening. From the left my girlfriend Lisa and mates Tobias, Sandra and Christopher (yes, the guy that always posts my pics =) and myself followed Swedens dramatic game against Paraguay in the World cup.
In the 89th (!!!!) minute Freddie Ljungberg headed in the winning goal in a game we just had to win to stay in the tournament. Unfortunatly I don´t have a picture of that. Let´s just say that I was busy controlling my vocal cords =)
Anyone else who can show a groovy World cup pic? Let me know!
The old postoffice
I was having lunch at busy, busy Vasagatan (the same street where Stockholms centralstation is located) and looked across seeing this great building. I´ve seen it before but never really reflected on it. This is the old head office of the postal system in Sweden.
One of many glorious buildings built under king Oscar II it was finalized in 1902 and was the head office until 2003 when some idiot decided that it was worth investing billions in a really ugly building (I´ll show you which one soon).
The building is huge, covering basically a small block by itself. Sadly though it stands empty which is quite strange since it stands in a highly attractive and busy area. So a not so wild guess would be that it will be open for business soon =)
Who was he?
On the 28th of february, 1986, a man raced up these stairs having completed the murder of Swedens primeminister, Olof Palme.
Who he is, if he worked for any organization or if it was just a killing by random we probably never will know. The police investigation of the murder, that shocked Sweden severly, has been heavily criticized after they neglected several leads.
Palme had visited the cinema with his wife Lisbeth and was walking home late in the evening when he was shot. It may seem unbelivable but the elected leader of our country walked the streets without the need of any bodyguards making him an easy target.
Speculations have been high if foreign interests made the killing, giving that Palme was a very prolific politician abroad.
After the murder, late in the night, the killer ran up the stairs turning left on Malmskillnadsgatan. In the middle you can also see the entrance to the Brunkebergstunne that I showed you yesterdayl.
Sadly Sweden never really learned anything from the killing. Blessed from these things we were once again reminded when a lone psychopath killed our foreign minister, Anna Lindh, on the 11th of september 2002. Nowadays you rarely see any of our top politicians without a bodyguard by their side.
The Brunkebergtunnel
On a hot, really hot, unbearably hot day as today was in Stockholm (I´m not complaining, it´s just always a small chock getting the first real extreme heatwave after a pretty dull few weeks) it´s always cool to take a walk in the Brunkebergstunnel.
The tunnel, finalized in 1886, is 231 metres long and about 15-20 metres underground and transports people under the Brunkebergridge. The tunnel has one of it´s exits under some stairs that was an escapeway for a murderer back in 1986... which murder and the stairs I will show you tomorrow!
Just a funny little note regarding this tunnel is that they actually charged people going through it for quite some years. In any case it is quite a cool pathway!
Tidy would´nt you say?
There is currently a campaign going in Stockholm right now. In the bottom picture it stands "here is your nearest garbagebasket!"
I´ve seen it quite a lot during the spring and summer and as all things that make things better for all of us I cant really say anything negative about it!
These pics where taken in Humlegårdsparken. And as you can see from the top picture, it quite often is´nt that far to another garbage can if you miss one =)
I do belive that Sweden is a generally tidy place. Not only regarding this but also enviromentally. Did you know that you can go for a swim basically in the middle of the city? If not I´ll show you some picture of that soon =)
Have a good one out there. Catch you tomorrow!
The Sergel Square
Finally an update!
Yes, it is true, after many, many days of travel this young man is finally updating his photoblog. Many apologies but I have been on the road a lot.
These pictures are from the Sergel Square in Stockholm. In the above picture I have the sergel fountain (previously published in may) right behind me and the culture house to the left.
The Sergel Square is a important part of Stockholms citylife in different ways. A bit like the speekers corner in London this is where many groups show their different views. For example the group in the top picture are people from Iran claiming that Azerbaijan language should be legitimate in Iran. No topics are too small to be taken up nonetheless =D
The bottom picture is taken on the same level as the square behind one of the pathways. Sadly, this is a place where a lot of people of the "wrong kind" gather. Such as drugdealers. Although it´s something we are pretty blessed from petty dealers can be seen.
Going to be a bit more active the next two weeks. But now I am going to continue to grieve Swedens 0-0 opening at the world cup = (
And...
No update until earliest friday yet. Been busy busy lately. In the past two weeks I´ve only spent a few nights in Stockholm. Catch you in the weekend!
Time to pee!
Well, after arriving, late late from Gothenburg I actually did find time to post before the weekend =) But I did´nt have that much time to photograph sights unfortunatly. On my way to the west coast I was in such a hurry that pappa blå (translated: father blue) as we call the police here in Sweden decided to give me a nice present in the form of a 1400 crown fine... About 200 US dollars...
I got clocked at 134 km/h. 6 more and I would have lost my licence... So I was lucky!
One of few pictures I had time to take was this one when I took a pee-pee pause in the middle of nowhere on my way home.
I´m going to Kalmar tomorrow and hopefully I can show some nice pictures of the castle down there this weekend. Not from Stockholm but hey, atleast there´s going to be some pics! =)
